Frank laughed. ‘You know what, sir, thinking about it, I wonder if our Simon has ever even seen a cuddly toy before. I don’t reckon so, do you?’
‘I suspect you might be right,’ the captain said, waggling it in front of me again. ‘It’s a mouse, Simon,’ he said. ‘See? A mouse for you to play with. Squeak squeak!’
Then he shook his head. ‘As if he’s in need of such diversions round here, eh? Still, it’s jolly nice. And it’s the thought that counts, obviously. He’s not going to have much access to rats in quarantine, after all. I tell you what, Frank, we’ll need to put someone in charge of this. If this is the shape of things to come, there’ll be a lot more of the same before we finally make Plymouth. And we must do the decent thing and keep a record. Catalogue what’s received. Get some photographs taken. I’ve a feeling the fourth estate will be interested in this, what with the Dickin thing, don’t you? Tell you what,’ he said, having popped the post he’d pulled out back in the sack. ‘Have a word with Lieutenant Hett; see if he’d like to take charge of this. Just the job for him. Don’t you think? Something to keep him amused on the long journey home.’
I got another bat on the head then, with the thing which was definitely not a mouse. ‘So now you even have your own official Ship’s Cat Officer, Simon! How about that?’ said the captain.
But it was what Frank said next that really floored me. ‘And how about this lot?’ he asked the captain, gesturing to another bulging sack.
‘Er… what? You mean there’s more?’
Frank nodded. ‘This lot’s been sent for Peggy. Wasn’t sure what best to do with it all now she’s gone, sir.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Well, let me think. Have it dropped off at Shanghai, perhaps?’ Then he seemed to ponder for a moment. ‘On the other hand, doubt the purse strings will extend to having it shipped back to her in Hong Kong… Not given that it was the purse strings that had us leave her there in the first place, eh? No, on balance, we’ll just hang on to it. That would seem to be the best thing. Leave it with Lieutenant Hett. Perhaps the gifts could go to the PDSA.’
‘Good idea, sir,’ said Frank. ‘Righty ho.’ Then he turned to me. ‘So, young Simon, me lad. Wonder what other delights are going to be here for you?’
I could only stare at him, the ‘cuddly toy’ (which wasn’t cuddly in the least bit) forgotten. Peggy gone? Peggy gone? Gone where?
Chapter 21
Bay of Biscay, 1 November 1949
It took three months for us to sail to England, time which I spent as I’d always done; maintaining my watches, keeping the (now thankfully much smaller) rat population in check and wherever possible finding a billet in a warm, welcoming bunk or hammock, particularly as the temperature began dropping, and the thing they called ‘taters’ and ‘parky’ and something about ‘brass monkeys’ began to take on substance and shape.
Peggy had indeed gone, and the ship felt all the quieter and sadder for it. I kept listening for her bark, or bracing myself for her imminent arrival, or expecting her to appear around the corners of passageways, bounding along and prancing about and extremely keen to lick me, her tail thwacking back and forth like a mast in a gale. Then I’d remember that she wouldn’t, because something called the ‘purse strings’ meant she had been found another home, and in Hong Kong, which was strange and unsettling.
As for the why, what about Petty Officer Griffiths, who was the one who’d brought her on board? She’d been his dog originally. So how did he feel about it? With no answer forthcoming, I could only wonder about it. And wonder I did. How did Peggy feel about it? I missed her.
For the most part, the time passed easily, with the ship shipshape, the men occupied and the atmosphere largely happy. The traumas we’d all been through were fading thankfully away, though at the same time, albeit curiously, they worked an unlikely magic in making everyone appreciate how lucky we were.
But the closer we got to the place almost everyone called home, the more I became aware that something significant might be happening – something that I might not quite like. I could sense it, in the same way that cats can sense most things, and though I didn’t know what it was, I was about to find out.
‘I know how you’re going to feel, Blackie,’ Jack was explaining, on the morning of our arrival. It was past eight o’clock but, in this curious part of the world, still quite dark. ‘You’re going to feel like we’ve abandoned you. But we haven’t,’ he said. ‘Not a bit of it, okay? It’s just that there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s no getting round quarantine, I’m afraid. The law’s the law, and there’s no way around the law once we’re home, even if you are the most famous cat in the world.’
It was a curious business, sitting in the mess with so many of my friends, knowing this was the last day, perhaps for a long time, that we’d all be at sea together. We were within ‘spitting’ distance, as Frank would say. I wished we weren’t.
We’d left Gibraltar the previous day and were now making good speed to Devonport, where everyone kept saying we were going to have ourselves a welcome to rival all the welcomes we’d already had put together. We were returning as heroes, and the ‘world and his wife’ would be waiting there to greet us, which, though it clearly made my friends happy in the utmost – which of course made me happy – was increasingly making me feel sad for myself, because it reminded me that my home was here.
Back in Hong Kong, we had already been greeted by more people than I had ever seen together in one place. It had been much the same ever since. We’d stopped at so many ports along the way, it was hard to keep track of them – Singapore, Penang, Colombo, Aden and Port Said – where Frank was reunited with his son, and had to try so hard not to cry.
Then it was Malta, and most recently Gibraltar. I’d not gone ashore – after Hong Kong, I didn’t think I’d better wander off again, just in case – but each dock would still have a place in my memory because each had smelled different, looked different, felt different. In one aspect, each had been much like the one before it; we’d leave the open sea only to have it replaced by another; a sea of cheering humans, the warmth in their smiles, waves and welcomes unwavering, whatever the vagaries of the weather.
But since leaving Gibraltar, something very worrying had started happening; something that was beginning to make me question my previous assumption that, once the Amethyst had been repaired, and the crew had seen their families, we’d be off to our next posting on the South China Seas.
The worry was that strange new word ‘quarantine’. That curious word that Captain Kerans had first mentioned just as we’d left Hong Kong, and which I wished I had paid a great deal more attention to. This strange, worrying place where there’d be no rats to hunt – that much I had at least recalled.
I’d been hearing the word ‘quarantine’ here and there ever since. Not to me, particularly, but always in tones that made me sure it was something not so much to be excited about, but be borne.
I stood up on Jack’s lap now, arched my back and had a stretch, then settled down again and, because I knew he was in his best togs today, took care not to knead my front claws on his knees.
‘Daft, ain’t it?’ said Martin, who was similarly scrubbed up. The whole crew were, because once we docked, the ship’s company were going on parade again – their last in a run of them (I’d never seen so much spit-and-polishing) this one, the main one, through the streets of Plymouth. ‘You’d think they’d make an exception for him, wouldn’t you?’ he argued. ‘I mean it’s not like he’s going to be off being someone’s pet an’ that, is it? Not like he couldn’t just stick around with one of us till we’re off on our travels again.’